I have been working in the affiliate marketing world for 12 years, and I have specialized in High-Ticket products in the finance and investment sector, one of the most difficult sectors ever.
In all this time I have accumulated successes and a lot of failures.
They have all been great lessons, and in this post I will try to encapsulate as many of them as possible in the form of advice.
I hope they will be useful to you.
Invest a lot of time in niche research, competitor analysis and keyword research
If there is one quality that, if possessed, can exponentially increase your chances of success in High-Ticket Affiliate Marketing, as in any other business for that matter, it is patience. In this case, the patience not to immediately start writing and creating content, but to do all the necessary analysis before writing even a single word.
Analyzing the market and finding the right niche in which to create your site is certainly the most important advice I can give you. You can be as good as you want, but if you start working in a saturated and over-competitive niche, you can (almost) say goodbye to your dreams of glory.
Invest your time in looking for the right niche and analyzing it in every detail: how many and what your competitors are, how many and what types of content you can create, how well-versed you are on the topic, how much it will cost you in terms of time and resources to get the information you need to create really useful content, etc. etc.
This is the best advice ever: don’t rush, invest your time, create a detailed plan.
Invest in a blogging and affiliate marketing massive courses
Staying in the area of preparation, I recommend you consider purchasing one of the courses on High-Ticket Affiliate Marketing.
These are comprehensive courses designed to serve both beginners and more advanced users, and they explain everything you need to know about setting up a blog in a niche and monetizing specifically with Affiliate Marketing.
I think SEO blogging is a fantastic strategy, especially when combined with High-Ticket product promotion.
These courses will give you all the basics, concepts, strategies and tricks you need to do it the best way possible.
For the first few months, don’t obsess over the web design
Once you have found your niche, and your plan is completed, then you can start working and creating your site.
A new site (and I speak from firsthand experience) needs only one basic thing, and that is not to look good.
A new site needs content, i.e., published posts.
Your first few months need to be focused solely on that. You need to publish as much quality content as possible, to reach a critical mass and let Google know what your site is about, and that you are authoritative enough to get unstuck (or “get you out of the sandbox period, as they say).
Don’t waste time thinking about the perfect site design, about making it beautiful more than the bare minimum. Find a decent WordPress theme, use some nice copyright-free images (e.g. from pexels.com) and you’ll have everything you need.
Later on, when the site starts attracting steady traffic, and things start getting interesting, you can start spending time and resources on improving the design of the site.
Focus on creating value, not creating content
Imagine you want to promote a high-ticket affiliate product, specifically a very expensive course on investing in stocks.
You have two paths: 1) you can find information about this course online, written by others, trying to create as complete a review as possible; 2) you can actually buy the course, do it, and then review it with your own opinions.
Most people will try route 1, but those who will really succeed will be those who take route 2.
If you want to create valuable content, the best thing is to really try the products you want to promote. Doing this will immediately put you in a different category than your competitors-I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes dozens of times.
Most affiliates try to create content by taking what has been created by others, but Google understands this, and so do your readers.
When you actually do things instead, they will have a whole other flavor, and they will immediately appear as genuine. All of this will translate into a lot more extra traffic.
Work on Topical Authority SEO
Many believe that Topical Authority will be the predominant and most effective strategy in SEO in the coming years.
Explained in simple terms, Topical Authority means creating as much content as possible on a single niche, covering every possible topic or angle. If Google sees that you are able to write about every topic related to the main topic, it will consider you an authority on the topic, and reward you with traffic, even in the absence of backlinks.
To study the topic you can follow Koray Tuğberk GÜBÜR, a real superstar on the topic.
Start with monetization in mind, but don’t monetize right away
The first few months of your work should be aimed primarily at creating content for traffic generation.
You definitely don’t have to worry about monetizing, because without traffic you have no way to do that either.
However, this does not mean that it is not useful to think about future monetization before you start. It is good to be clear about what High-Ticket products or services you are going to promote later. This will help you maintain a direction and a common thread in the various content you publish.
You can even start including “normal” links to those products in the content you are creating, so that in the future you will simply have to change them to affiliate links.
Focus your efforts on list posts for monetization
When it comes to content that has the most capacity to generate conversions in Affiliate Marketing, nothing beats List Posts.
This is content in which you list the best buying options for a certain type of product, along with some details and opinions. To get an idea you can look at one of my top pieces of content at InvestinGoal.com.
These types of content are among the most competitive, which means you’ll have to work hard to find long keywords that are still “free.” Since you’ll be promoting High-Ticket products, however, and since you’ll be affiliated with all the products listed, you won’t lose a single potential customer, and even with little traffic you’ll be able to start generating some interesting returns.
Learn CRO, Conversion Rate Optimization
I said in an earlier point not to think about design in the first few months of building your site/blog.
Then when it is time to start thinking about design as well, don’t just think about making the site more beautiful.
Think about making it more “functional.”
What I mean is: your goal is to convert your visitors into buyers of the products you are promoting. In other words, you need to get your readers to click on your affiliate links in the first place.
Figuring out how to improve the design to make as many users as possible click on the elements you want is part of CRO, or Conversion Rate Optimization.
At some point, if you want to get the most out of your traffic, you will have to learn how to do it.
Start as soon as possible to cultivate a mailing list
Creating a mailing list means having a list of people interested in your industry and what you have to say, this means they are also interested in the products you recommend.
In technical jargon, having a mailing list allows you to upsell, basically convince users to buy other products after they buy the first one.
If you promote High-Ticket products, it means that your readers are people willing to spend, and if they spend a lot once, they are likely to do it again.
Also, in the case of precisely High-Ticket Affiliate Marketing, using emails can be a great touch point to try to convince users to use your affiliate link in exchange for additional bonuses from you.
Offer bonuses and incentives to use your affiliate links
This may be one of the most powerful tips on this list in terms of increasing conversions.
When it comes to buying an expensive high-ticket product, users will be very happy to know that by purchasing it through your affiliate link they will be given additional bonuses that will further help them solve their problems thanks to the purchase they just made.
How is it possible to do this?
Quite simply, many affiliate platforms allow you to see the e-mail of people who have made a purchase through your link.
Promote your offer, and add the fact that if they use your link they will get X free gift.
Leverage social media to expose yourself as an authority in the niche
Speaking of strategies for High-Ticket Affiliate Marketing, I also included that of “becoming an influencer,” because influencer is, in a sense, synonymous with authority in the industry.
Even if your strategy is not to become an influencer, but to create a blog, Social Media can still come in very handy.
A person who wants to become an authority in his or her industry is bound to have other channels of contact besides his or her blog or website. It is normal to have some or all of the major social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, and Twitter).
Many users search a blog’s social networks on purpose to make sure they follow the site and stay updated. If you don’t have them, you can miss many opportunities to draw your readers back to your blog.
Focus on a small audience
You are promoting High-Ticket products, which means your commission will be very high, on the order of a few hundred dollars per sale.
That means you won’t need many to achieve an attractive income.
Consequently, you can make your path even easier by focusing your efforts on very small groups of readers. Small, well-chosen groups mean less competition.
For example, to make money in the world of online trading, you don’t need to talk to every forex enthusiast. You can focus on Italian fans of a particular trading platform, called cTrader (as I’ve done on my Italian site). It is a fairly small group, but more than enough to generate a huge income.
Promote fewer products
Last tip, when it comes to High-Ticket Affiliate Marketing in particular you can also avoid, especially in the beginning, signing up for dozens of affiliate programs as so many affiliate marketers do.
In the beginning you need focus and to establish your authority. Do it one product at a time, focus on just one product or two at most, really try them out, tell your experience, really make yourself useful to your readers. Again, it’s High-Ticket products and commissions, you need little traffic and few clicks to generate an income, but if you don’t focus, your competition won’t allow you to generate even that little traffic you need.